Apan Basu: Chamber ad audacious

I am really surprised of the audacity of the full-page advertisement by the Chamber of Commerce in the May 12 edition of The N&O.

My wife and I are both receive Social Security benefits. I get a monthly $500 from my personal retirement fund, and my wife is retired teacher and she gets North Carolina state benefits. I have a consulting engineering office, and depending upon the profitability, I usually pay $200 to $300 in state taxes every year. This year we have paid $1,200 in state taxes with a net loss of $2,200 in my business.

And this is how the $400 million came from. This is on the back of middle-income people.

I challenge the Chamber of Commerce to provide percentage of taxpayers earning $70,000 or less per year who have paid less N.C. state tax for 2014 than the previous year. I also challenge the Chamber of Commerce to provide any legislation acted by this legislative body that created a single job in this state.

This story was originally published May 16, 2015 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Apan Basu: Chamber ad audacious."